Twice Saved From the Germans
The Somme lay between the opposing armies, and in the vicinity of Eclusier it forms a marshy lake. At flood the water covered the lines so that soldiers often lost their way, and here Marcelle found another means of serving France.
The correspondent says:
“Being thoroughly acquainted with the neighborhood, she used to pilot parties of soldiers. This brought her again close to death. While leading a squad of men who wanted to dig an advanced trench in the village of Frise she fell into the hands of a party of Germans.
“They locked her up in the little village church of Frise. On the morrow, she felt sure, they would shoot her.
“But once more luck and the French artillery were her salvation. The French across the Somme began a lively bombardment of Frise. One shell blew a large hole in the church wall. Through this hole, unperceived by her captors, Marcelle crawled. Creeping past the Germans scattered through Frise, she soon tumbled, safe and sound, into the nearest French trench.
“By this time her fame had spread and rewards began to shower upon her. She got the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and some time later the War-Cross. In spite of all she had gone through, she persisted in staying in the Somme country and continued to work for the cause of France. For fifteen months she remained, despite shot and shell, in her little Somme village, taking care of wounded soldiers. Also among her charges was a woman of 90, too feeble to travel to a safer place. Marcelle looked out for her night and day with unflagging devotion.
“Everywhere soldiers knew and admired her. One English General ordered his soldiers to salute when she passed and refrain from addressing her unless she spoke first.”
Under the strain of her volunteer work she finally came near to a breakdown and was persuaded to go to Paris. There she entered a nurses’ school to qualify for the care of the wounded, work being necessary to her to shut away her personal sorrows, as everything she possessed or held dear the war had taken from her.
All this and more was told at the Sorbonne Conference, and then, says the Times correspondent, the narrator made a dramatic gesture and exclaimed:
“‘This little heroine of Picardy, this admirable girl, this incarnation of the qualities of the woman of France, this girl of simple origin, flawless dignity, of serious mind, and gentle ways, this girl of indomitable will-power, is here, ladies and gentlemen, here among you, in this room! And I feel that I am the spokesman for every one of you when I now extend to her the expression of our respect, our gratitude, our admiration!’
“The auditors, every man, woman and child of them, leaped to their feet, mad with enthusiasm. They craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the heroine. Unable to escape them, the young girl stood up, blushing. Through the great hall of the Sorbonne, where the most famous people of the world had been honored by France, swept a storm of cheers. A reward more splendid than the Cross of the Legion of Honor, than the War-Cross, than the salutes of soldiers at the front, had come to Marcelle Semmer.”